Conservatives and the Poor

I disagree with Rick's rejection of the characterization of Rob's quote as a significant "conservative" view of the causes of poverty.  (I'm referring here to his use of scare quotes when referring to the notion that poverty results from the moral defects of the poor themselves as a widespread "conservative" view.)  To be sure, this is not the view that all conservatives hold, and I doubt it's the view of anyone on this site.  But it is certainly a significant and mainstream strain of thought in the conservative movement and a frequent means of voicing opposition to government assistance for the poor (remember Reagan's "welfare queens"?).  (There's nothing new, by the way, about attempts to attribute the poverty of the poor to their immorality.  (cf. John 9.1-3.))  In addition, it often works as code for certain reprehensible racial views, but that is a different issue.  I had meant to blog about this series of comments by a conservative radio talk show host when it first appeared, but it now seems relevant to this discussion.  Here are  comments from Neal Boortz's (Cox Radio) August 3 show:

I want you to think about this, folks. You know, most of the people that earn minimum wage are teenagers. They're in the job market for a short period of time, they're learning some job skills, they're learning workplace skills. Most of the people who aren't teenagers that have a minimum-wage job, it lasts about three to four months, and they're off making more money. I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage.

Now, obviously this is a little more crude than the comment Rob posted, but it gets at the same basic point.  And I think we can all admit that these sorts of comments and innuendos are not all that unusual among conservatives.  I'm sure without too much trouble, I could dig up a few more examples.